An Introduction to the World Of "The Unanswered Questions"

You know your neighborhoods, your states, and countries. 
Wars that  defined our borders.
Movements that shaped our society.
Voices that created rules.
But an event in the near future comes and shatters that all. The Earth is no longer a place you know. It’s in flames, and it falls to dust. You can’t breathe. Land falls to the sea, and the small, helpless human race runs for cover.

The world in which all of stories (besides an amazing collab project with some friends) takes place in is one that is familiar to us. Or once was. Of course elements of the past still linger.
The past fascinates some, but terrifies many.
Life before the daunting “EarthShaker” has practically been wiped from the Earth (now promptly urged to be called Eorthe). How does one come back from utter destruction? 
You make it impossible to fight.
The world is now “joined” into 95 peaceful co-existing regions. Residents are free to move about as they please (and can afford). Most regoins are left to govern themselves and elect representatives for annual meetings in the exclusive regoin of the “Capitol North”, located in the manufactured new North Pole.
The Capitol North is home to higher officials, such as representatives and their families, agents from the Defending Offices, but most of all the Minister, who is a ruler primarily for the play, with very little actual authority.


The regions are broken up into “types”.
There are five Golden or “Capitol” Regions (one of which, “Imperial”, is featured in the first book). These regions often have wealthier residents and hold places of importance.
Other regions are sorted for particular resource reasons, such as a region that has surviving fertile land is often good for farming, or becomes a “Preservation” region to keep wildlife such as forests thriving (farming regions and Preservations often co-exist). Others are more suitable for big cities and domestic needs. There are also “Wasteland” regions, where the land has been deemed infertile, and there was no interest to build cities or communities over. 
As the world’s population has drastically decreased many regions are very sparse of population (often Wasteland regions), even after 300 years, the world isn’t even fully re-built.
But what the world lacks in it’s size, is it’s vast culture. The longing for normalcy and unity is a very constant theme among the civilians. Some reach into the past, and other to the future, but the want for peace is a universal (and often constantly blared in your face) message for all.
The universal language is “Anglish”, the slightly advanced version of English, but many still practice their native languages as well (though many do not encourage it). Each “civilized” region often has a distinct way to remember it, by it’s culture, tradition, ideas, or people. 
But not all is perfect, and the unity so often promoted, is not always present.
There are disagreements on how we ought to move on.
Do we continue our influence with the past or the future?


And, as you will learn in The Unanswered Questions, culture and disputes are not the only thing inhabiting these regions.
Something dark ad dangerous lurks in the shadows.
Something distinctly supernatural.

I hope you all enjoyed learning about the Joined World. There are MANY aspects I had to leaveout or quickly summarize, as it’s fairly complicated. I did enjoy being able to show you a bit more of the political side as well (as it’s not really explored in Book One. There’s just SO much!)

​- [Lauren D. Fulter]